Temple's University College offers a summer program of “Pre-College Workshops”, directed by Dr. Maureen Saraco.  High school students can attend this program and obtain a two-week college-like experience.  Students may live on campus or commute and are required to attend two workshops a day as well as “college knowledge” sessions and on- and off-campus student activities. 

The program offers a wide array of subjects to choose from, ranging from Dance to Engineering to Psychology. This past summer, Dr. Rani Vasudeva, Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, taught two summer sessions for Psychology and Neuroscience. During her workshops, Dr. Vasudeva covered a wide array of topics meant to enhance student learning in these subject areas and engage students in an exciting way with challenging material. Topics covered included history of psychology, basic brain anatomy, cognitive, developmental, and behavioral and abnormal psychology. 

Dr. Vasudeva’s students had an opportunity to engage in various field trips on Temple’s campus. They received a tour of TUBRIC (Temple’s fMRI brain imaging center), led by Dr. Jason Chein. They also visited Dr. Vishnu “Deepu” Murty’s memory laboratory and Dr. Peter Marshall’s child development laboratory. Students were able to participate in small demonstrations in each lab, including working with postdoctoral researcher Dr. Melissa Horger to view their own brainwaves while wearing an electroencephalogram (EEG) cap (pictured above).  Students also participated in interactive laboratory stations in a field trip to the Neuroscience teaching lab in Weiss Hall. Here, they engaged with microscopes, took cognitive memory tests, saw brain specimens, and interacted with brain models. 

This program is offered every summer in the hopes of inspiring high school students to enroll at Temple for an undergraduate degree. For more information, visit Temple University's Pre-college Workshops page.